thecapitol | the day my baby left me; semi-open???

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the day my baby left me; semi-open???

Who| Joel and uhhh... close CR??? idk you know who you are.
What| Ellie's gone. This is gonna be bad.
Where| The Tribute Tower, Joel's room in D8.
When| After the mini-arena.
Warnings/Notes| Possible mentions of torture and/or abuse. Feel free to have your character run into him while he's searching for Ellie, or have them drop by his room later.

Joel expected worse treatment than he got, honestly. He knows what he did at the Reaping was stupid, and he expected to pay for it more harshly than what actually transpired. They made him watch things, mostly. First it was Capitol propaganda, which was annoying but not particularly noteworthy.

Then they made him watch the mini-arena. And it's not that he's not used to seeing violence, even violence against children. He is, but that doesn't make it right, or good, or something he enjoys. By the time it's over, he's exhausted, and hungry, and all he wants is to find Ellie and keep her close, remind himself she's here, that as long as he has her, everything is okay.

When she isn't in her room, he doesn't think too much of it. She's not in his room, either. She probably didn't know when he would be released, hell, he didn't know either. But he should be able to find her pretty quick - she rarely strays far, and never for very long.

He searches for an hour, two hours, three hours, hitting up all her usual hangouts. Nothing. At some point, he realizes there's a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach, and his palms are starting to feel clammy. Where is Ellie? The bile starts rising in his throat as the day gets later, curfew starts to approach, and she is still nowhere to be found.

Is this his real punishment? Did they take her away from him because of that little scene he made? Is that why they went so light on him while they held him? The more clear it becomes that Ellie is gone, the more detached he starts to feel. It's like his anchor is gone, and now he's adrift, and now what? It's like winter all over again, waking up to find her gone, except this time? He's completely powerless. He's not injured, and yet there is nothing he can do. Nothing. No one he can beat it out of, no place he can go to find her and bring her back.

Finally, defeated and unable to figure out what else to do, he returns to his room, locking the door behind him. Part of him wants to destroy something, smash something against a wall, throw a tantrum. It wouldn't do any good, though, and there isn't really anything in his room to smash. Only a couple of things Ellie gave him, things he would never destroy.

Sitting on the edge of his bed, he puts his head in his hands. She's gone.

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"Uh, hey." Clementine says, blinking a little in the wake of his gruff tone. "I was going to ask you that. I heard what happened."

On the outside she looks alright. The skin on her face is sore in places from the slime, there's some bruises that can be seen and if she was walking right now she'd show signs of a limp but that's all. She's come out of a mini-arena relatively unscathed a second time by some fortune, the same sort of fortune that kept her alive through a zombie apocalypse when everyone else fell around her.

When she breathes she picks up an unfamiliar smell about him, causing her nose to wrinkle.

"I'm fine."

He's not. He's about as far from fine as it's possible to be, without bleeding out all over everything. But when she says that she heard what happened, he assumes she's talking about Ellie being gone. Even if she wasn't, it's not something he wants to talk about. It's not something he wants to say aloud. Admitting it will just make it more real, and he doesn't need that.

He picks up a tray, offers it to her. Cookies. Beth gave them to him, he hasn't touched them.

"Are you sure?"

She doesn't mean to pry but it's Joel and, like so many survivors she's known, he has a tendency to brush off anything that's wrong, push it down and assure everyone he's fine even if he's really not. Clementine knows that pattern, especially when she's often guilty of it as well.

When he offers her the cookies she reflexively takes one with a thankful nod but doesn't immediately bite into it.

"I remember what they did to everybody after the jailbreak." and while kicking off at a Peacekeeper isn't on the same lines as trying to free murder-suspects from prison she remembers how easily Peacekeeper's are to turn to violence on tributes nowadays.

The jailbreak. Christ, she must be talking about his imprisonment.

Joel shakes his head. "They didn't do anything, just made me watch the arena." And then they took Ellie away from him, which he's sure is the real punishment, here.

Clementine gets a whiff of that smell again from him. Alcohol, she thinks it's alcohol. It must be a lot of it for Joel to smell that strong. Now Clem doesn't have a lot of experience with alcohol, beyond that brief taste of wine back at her first Crowning party, but she doesn't people drink that much alone when they're okay.

"That's horrible." she replies at once. There's no just about it. They made him sit and watch children fight and die, including Ellie. So maybe that's why he's decided to drink. "They must have known you'd get mad enough to fight about it."

Joel wasn't the only one either from what Clem's heard in the hours she's been back.

"Maybe," Joel says dismissively. The scene he caused is already a distant memory - if anything, he's beating himself up over it now, because he's convinced the punishment wasn't making him watch the arena with no sleep and little food.

His punishment was taking Ellie away from him. Just because they could.

He's always known they could, but didn't think they would because, well. Having her around kept him in line. They had to know he would mostly keep his head down as long as he had her to protect.

Now she's gone, and it's all he can think about.

There's something not quite right about that, she thinks so anyway. Maybe it's just Joel's usual brusqueness but there's a feeling she has that there's something else not right here, something that's missing.

"Have you seen Ellie yet?" it's a normal question for Clementine to ask. Now that she thinks about it she's surprised not to find Joel in Ellie's company, that's where she'd expect to find him after Ellie came out of the arena. He was practically her dad after all.

It sends a knife into his chest, hearing her say that name so innocently - like it should be self-evident, like she should be here, like he should be with her.

He should.

"She's gone," he hears himself say, his voice rough, avoiding Clem's gaze, taking another swig of the whiskey. It's as simple as that. She's gone.

For a moment Clementine doesn't think she's heard that right.

"What?"

Her voice comes out smaller, quieter than she'd intended, almost a whisper of shock and disbelief at what he was telling her. Ellie was gone? she cant be gone, Ellie's her friend. Ellie's smart and capable, funny and kind. Ellie plays videogames with her and helps Clementine practice shooting a bow, playfully teasing her when her shots go wide.

As much as she knows and understands that sometimes people are just gone, that there's no goodbye and no hope for reunion it shoots a sharp lance of pain through her chest as everything clicks into place. That was why Joel was acting the way he was, that was why he smelled of alcohol. As if to prove that Joel pulls out the bottle and takes a drink, which Clementine watches silently as she struggles for words.

She's been told before that sometimes the Capitol won't bring someone back, this is the first time she's had to experience it with someone she knew. "I... I'm sorry."

The words sting her to say because as always they're useless, they don't make anything better. They're just what you were supposed to say.

Joel likes to think he's used to loss - the permanent sort, it's part of everyday life where he comes from. He's lost so much. Sarah, Tess, now Ellie. He tries to keep himself protected from caring too much, but inevitably, someone gets under his skin - and then he loses them.

"Yeah," he murmurs, perching on the edge of the bed. Clem is young. Part of him wants to just tell her to go - but he can't find it in himself to say so. So he just sits, staring down at his feet. Maybe she'll take the hint.

She doesn't take the hint, even though she wonders if she should leave. It feels wrong to do so. Joel is her friend.

Clementine does the only thing that seems right to do in this moment without even needing to think about it. She puts the cookie back down on the plate, steps forward and throws her arms around Joel's neck, hugging him tightly so the side of her face is pressed against his.

This is the best she can do.

Joel isn't good at physical affection. Or affection of any kind, really. The hug, then, takes him by surprise. He doesn't know how to deal with it, so he freezes up for a moment, awkwardly, and finally puts an arm around Clem's shoulders, giving her a pat.

Can he look after Clementine, or will she just get taken away too?

When he freezes up she thinks she's done wrong and might've pulled back if this hug was for entirely selfless reasons. Joel puts his arm around her after that first moment though and in return she tightens her hold just a little more.

Clementine resolves she won't cry, even if her her heart is squeezed tight in her chest. "I'll miss her too."

If he lets himself get too close to Clem, what will happen when she dies? Because she will, Joel knows that beyond a shadow of a doubt. Everyone does. Especially the kids. He's seen enough dead kids to know that.

"Yeah," he mutters, his arm still around her, despite knowing he should probably push her away.

There's not much else to say but the hug lasts a good minute longer before Clementine finally, slowly pulls back, looking at Joel. She's blinking a little too much to be natural but that's about the only sign that tears almost happened.

"Can I... can I do anything? Get anything?" Or anyone. Maybe Tess could help, she was from Joel's world and they seemed close.

She wants to help. He can't really deal with that right now, though, and he turns away, shaking his head. "Nah. You should - go be with your friends." Do something fun. Be a kid, while she can, while she's still here.

Clementine rubs her arm a little self-consciously. She has no idea what to do beyond what she's already done and said. Joel's giving off an air of wanting to be alone and even though Clementine worries about that she doesn't think it'd be okay to go against it. Trying to stay might make him unhappier.

"... okay." she says, in a small voice. "I'll come see you tomorrow, then." Maybe if she brings a game to play it would help.

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the day my baby left me; semi-open???

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